Open letters

The devastating response of the Pakistani government in the wake of the sickening Peshawar school massacre has set the country on a relentless and reprehensible course of executions, said Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

In an open letter to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif today, the organizations urge the Pakistani government to immediately establish an official moratorium on all executions with a view to the eventual abolition of the death penalty. Over the past 12 months, more than 300 people have been put to death in the country.

“In the space of one year, Pakistan has become one of the world’s top three executioners – a dark and shameful development. The authorities must ensure that the relentless push to send death row prisoners to the gallows ends now before more lives are lost,” said David Griffiths, Amnesty International’s South Asia Research Director.

Doctors and health professionals from every region of the world today added their voices to the growing pressure for the decriminalization of abortion, with 838 from 44 countries signing an open letter to governments published today by Amnesty International.

The letter calls on governments to stop interfering with health professionals’ ability to provide care, warning that criminalizing abortion puts women and girls’ health and lives at risk.

“The criminalization of abortion prevents healthcare providers from delivering timely, medically indicated care in accordance with their patients' wishes,” said the letter.

“It impedes and disregards sound medical judgment and can undermine the professional duty of care and confidentiality that doctors bear towards their patients.”

The letter was signed by health professionals from institutions around the world including Ghent University Hospital in Belgium, Universidad Nacional del Comahue in Argentina, Harvard Medical School in the USA and the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

Amnesty International is deeply concerned that the potential for the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric dam to cause serious harm to downstream Inuit communities has not been properly dealt with, as required both by Canadian law and international human rights standards. We are writing this letter to you in your capacities as party leaders because we believe this is a pressing human rights concern that, regardless of the outcome of the upcoming provincial election, requires action and vigilance from both the government and the entire legislative assembly.

We are writing to you regarding Canada’s human rights record in light of the July 2015 release of the United Nations Human Rights Committee’s Concluding Observations on the country’s implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This was the first time the Committee has examined Canada’s record in a decade. As in other reviews of Canada by UN bodies, including the Human Rights Council, these Concluding Observations raise numerous serious concerns about critical violations of human rights in this country.

Over the past several months, Amnesty International has – in letters to the government and in comments in the media – highlighted our serious concerns about the human rights implications of the $15 billion deal reached between London, Ontario-based General Dynamics and the Saudi Arabian government for the sale of potentially hundreds of armored vehicles over the next decade.

The Canadian government, as you know, has an obligation to carry out a human rights assessment of the deal to ensure that, among other things, “there is no reasonable risk that the good might be used against the civilian population.” Given the very serious and widespread human rights violations regularly committed by Saudi officials, and given the nature of and potential uses of the vehicles that are the subject of this lucrative deal, a thorough and transparent human rights assessment is urgently required.

We are writing this Open Letter to reiterate and update Amnesty International’s concerns with respect to the case of Mohamed Fahmy. We have written frequently to the Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of State (Consular Affairs), ever since Mr. Fahmy was first arrested in December 2013. We are including Minister Alexander at this time because we have specific concerns with respect to the challenges Mr. Fahmy faces in obtaining a replacement for his Canadian passport. Consistent with the critical importance of taking a strong stand in defence of Mr. Fahmy’s internationally protected human rights, we are calling on the government to ensure that he receives a passport without delay.

We are writing this Open Letter with a request that you personally intervene on behalf of Raif Badawi, a Saudi Arabian blogger who has been sentenced to 1,000 lashes, a ten year prison term and other punishments simply because he believes in and has exercised his right to freedom of expression.

We write further to similar requests we directed to former Minister Baird on 15 January and to Prime Minister Harper on 28 January. We have consistently called for action at the most senior levels of the Canadian government for several reasons.

* There is a strong Canadian connection to Mr. Badawi’s case, by virtue of the fact that his wife Ensaf Haidar and their three young children have been granted refugee status and permanent residence in Canada and now reside in Sherbrooke, Quebec.

We are writing with a renewed sense of urgency about the case of Bashir Makhtal. Mr. Makhtal, a Canadian citizen of Ethiopian Ogadeni origin, has been imprisoned in Ethiopia since January 2007 and is serving a life prison term after an unfair trial and appeal.

Credible and troubling allegations have now come to Amnesty International’s attention, indicating that he may have been subject to torture and ill-treatment, may have made a confession because of that torture, and is possibly facing a number of serious health problems.

Mr. Makhtal has authorized that this information be shared openly and publicly as he hopes it will generate wider understanding of his plight and generate renewed and increased action on his behalf.
These very worrying reports require immediate attention and action from the Canadian government. In particular:

We are writing this Open Letter with an urgent request that you intervene in the case of Raif Badawi, the Saudi Arabian blogger and human rights defender who has been sentenced to 1,000 lashes, 10 years in prison and other penalties and restrictions, simply for exercising his right to freedom of expression. As you will know, there is a strong Canadian connection to the case because Canada has, very commendably, welcomed his wife Ensaf Haidar and their three young children to this country as refugees.

We are writing this Open Letter to urge that you intervene in the case of Canadian citizen Mohamed Fahmy, who has been imprisoned for over one year in Egypt, with a direct request to the Egyptian government that he be released immediately and unconditionally and allowed to return to Canada. We appreciate Minister Baird’s efforts to resolve the case during his visit to Cairo this week. However, the fact that Mr. Fahmy remains imprisoned, with no clear commitment from Egyptian authorities to release him, points to the necessity of you now becoming involved. We note that Mr. Fahmy himself made that request of you yesterday; and we very much agree with him that action from you personally is now urgently required.

Tomorrow, in front of the al-Jafali Mosque in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Raif Badawi will be lashed publicly fifty times for the second time in a week. In Sherbrooke, Quebec his wife Ensah Haidar and their three children, who have been welcomed to Canada as refugees, await in fear and agony at the prospect of the torture their husband and father faces yet again. And across Canada and around the world a growing chorus of hundreds of thousands of voices call on the Saudi government to end this terrible injustice and free Raif Badawi from prison rather than continue with his cruel and inhuman sentence of 1,000 lashes.

The Honourable Chris Alexander
Minister of Citizenship and Immigration
Ottawa, ON K1A 1L1

Dear Minister Alexander,

We are writing this Open Letter to you in regards to Canada’s response to the Syrian refugee crisis. In advance of the UNHCR pledging conference in Geneva on December 9, 2014, we are urgently calling on the Government of Canada to substantially increase its response across all fronts, including higher levels of resettlement and greater financial assistance.

We are a Coalition of Canadian organizations across the country concerned about human rights in China. We are writing to urge that during your official visit to China over the coming days, in advance of next week’s APEC Leaders’ Meeting, you, and Ministers and other Canadian officials travelling with you, raise the issue of human rights during bilateral meetings with Chinese leaders and other events and opportunities.

Ten years ago, Amnesty International published its major report, Stolen Sisters: Discrimination and Violence against Indigenous Women in Canada. The report built on work that Indigenous women and communities had been doing for years, documenting and speaking out for the hundreds of sisters, daughters and mothers taken by violence. At the time, all parties in the Canadian Parliament made statements affirming that urgent action was needed to stop this violence. Tragically, however, despite some positive initiatives by all levels of government, the response over the last decade has been primarily characterized by a piecemeal, inadequate and poorly coordinated government response to the dire threats facing Indigenous women and girls.

Amnesty International has repeatedly spoken out about widespread violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights standards since the most recent crisis in Gaza and Israel erupted on 8 July. We are writing this Open Letter to you, on behalf of more than 80,000 Amnesty International members across Canada, with an urgent request that the Canadian government similarly speak out and insist that these rapidly mounting violations – by both sides of this conflict – must end immediately.

We have of course noted the frequent comments made by the Prime Minister, you personally and other members of the government, criticizing Hamas for the indiscriminate firing of rockets into Israel. Amnesty International has similarly consistently condemned those actions, underscoring that such actions constitute violations of international humanitarian law.